Grieving Over Your Bipolar Diagnosis - Part One

When I type the word 'GRIEF', what loss do you think of that would cause you to grieve? Did you think it was the death of a loved one? Most people do. Today, we are going to discuss a different kind of loss that causes us to grieve. The loss of our mental health.

You are your own loved one. You were forced to confront a life you didn't ask for and give up the idea of what you thought life could be. It is the death of what could have been. That, my friends, is something to grieve over. This blog will be a two part series. We are going to first discuss the stages. Then, we will discuss ways to work through the stages in the next blog post.

AN OVERVIEW
There are 5 to 7 stages of grief. The most commonly accepted is by author, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, from her 1969 book, On Death And Dying. It is important to know a few facts about the stages of grief.

1. You may not experience each one, although studies show women normally experience all 5 to 7. 
2. They do not happen in any particular order. 
3. They can happen more than once. Just because you reach the final stage (acceptance) doesn't mean you won't revisit each again at different times in your life. Grieving over the loss of our mental health never goes away. We will be reminded of it, even while living in a relatively balanced state. 
4. Stages can happen simultaneously, and are sometimes closely related to each other, making you slip back and forth between them.

THE STAGES

• Denial - It didn't happen. This is not me. It's not possible. I am numb.
• Anger - Why has my higher power let this happen to me?
• Bargaining - If I do this or that, it will go away or be okay.
• Depression - I can't take it. What is the point? I am worthless.
• Acceptance - It's going to be okay. I can live with this, no matter what.

DENIAL
In 2007, my family doctor, who had been treating me for depression for years, asked me to see a psychiatrist. I am a little hazy on what happened. I just remember not being able to hear anything else once I heard the word bipolar, telling the psychiatrist he was full of it and walking out.

Denial is most commonly the first stage we hit, but it can hit at any time, especially during a manic/hypomanic episode. At diagnosis, we may be shocked and can't believe what we just heard. Impossible is our thought. Certainly, we can't be bipolar!!!

Denial manifests both physically and emotionally. Denial can cause us to bottle our emotions as we deny our diagnosis. Think of a high pressure water hose that has a weak spot (no, bipolar is not weak). Now think of stopping the flow of water and increasing the pressure. That is not healthy for the hose no matter which way you go about it. It can cause confusion, nausea, and physical bodily pain and illnezs. Denial can make treatment difficult. It can make us act out in ways that try to deny the disorder, one of them being anger, a very closely related stage. It can also cause depression, another stage. These all closely work with each other and feed off of each other.

ANGER
My first reaction, besides denial, was to get very angry. How dare he tell me I had bipolar disorder. The only thing I knew about it was a Lifetime movie I watched one time about a pregnant woman that went off of her meds to have a baby. It wasn't a very pretty movie. In my limited knowledge at the time regarding bipolar disorder, the psychiatrist was the one 'crazy'. It didn't last long, but I was really angry.

Fast forward to 2011 and my first time hospitalized. During outpatient group therapy one day, I got angry at the topic. I don't know what the topic was. I went home and suddenly found myself beating wooden cabinet doors over and over. I kept screaming as I beat the crap out those doors (they didn't suffer any consequences). I was suddenly so angry at every single thing that I had to live a life with bipolar. My higher power, my parents, my childhood, my kids, my cat. You name it, I was ANGRY. I beat so hard, that I bent bracelets. I had deep bruises on my wrists and palms for weeks that made it difficult for me to write. I even split a couple of knuckles. I faced the anger stage for years again after after accepting that I had been diagnosed. It lasted for a long time.

Anger works very closely with denial. You are going to get angry and blame everything. Your psychiatrist, your parents, anyone but you. Or maybe you will blame yourself. I have. It is infuriating that you have a disorder for the rest of your life without being given a choice in the matter.

BARGAINING
I find myself in this stage constantly. If I just take my medication, everything will be fine. Then I exacerbate it by refusing to change meds when they need a tweak. I think if I just hold on and try to 'get better' everything will return to 'normal'. I don't call my pyshciatrist until I have already sliiped into a depressive state. I bargain with my illness that if I am patient, everything will be fine.

The most common form of bargaining when grieving over the loss of your mental health will be feeling if you do one certain thing, everything will be okay. This can even be closely related to denial if you think you can control your life and bipolar disorder without any help. This certainly is not the case. Bipolar is a fluid illness. It can't be controlled. It can, however, be successfully managed.

Another form of bargaining will come if you think can self medicate with alcohol. Alcohol is a downer and drinking will negate the effects of your medications.

DEPRESSION
Are we talking depression or a depressive episode? We are discussing both, because depression, which is part of having bipolar, can lead to a depressive state. Part of the grieving process will be facing depression at times specifically about having bipolar. After the initial diagnosis, you may find you spend the most time in this stage. Depression can last any length of time. There are times when I am depressed for just a few hours. It is closely related to anger. Who wants to live with bipolar? I don't. So I get sad and sometimes angry. I feel like I will never have a life I can be satisfied with.

With depression you are going to be asking why you had to be burdened with such an illness. There will be tears. You will lose sleep or you will sleep all the time. Your energy will be low. You will either not eat or overeat. You may feel worthless or like living life with bipolar is too hard, or not worth it. You will experience the typical symptoms of depression, but it will be in relation to your diagnosis. You will wonder how you are going to live life with bipolar. You won't want to, and that is a justified feeling.

Experiencing depression is a part of grief that you cannot avoid. Watch yourself for signs that your depression is becoming serious and turning into an episode. Are you starting to isolate yourself? Does the isolation become so bad that you are cutting your support group from your life and not allowing them to support you? That is an indication of a depressive state instead of experiencing the depression stage. Call your doctor immediately.

ACCEPTANCE
After storming out of the psychiatrist office in 2007, I went home and did the usual when presented with a problem I know nothing about. I googled. I read. I took tests (please know these tests are not reliable, but I didn't know that at the time). It was one of those AHA! moments. I fit everything I read about bipolar disorder to a 'T'. I read up on bipolar disorder at NAMI and NIHM. Use these sites to educate your support groups. The next day I scheduled myself another appointment at my psychiatrist's office, and yes, when I saw him, I apologized. I went through a brief time of denial thinking now that my behavior was named, I could be fine. That was denial also. I didn't realize how much work being 'fine' was always going to take.

With acceptance, you will realize a life with bipolar, is indeed possible. Satisfaction is possible. Happiness is possible! You can manage bipolar despite the ups and downs. This is challenging when going through episodes, but it is still possible. You will feel empowered. You will feel clear. You will find that you can prepare yourself for the battle. You will feel stable.

FINAL THOUGHTS
In our next blog, we will discuss ways you can move through the first four stages. We will discuss ways to stay in the acceptance stage longer and how to possibly maintain this stage through an episode.


To balanced and productive days my friends!

Laura

Final Thoughts - My Journey Through A Mental Health Facility

I am a perfectionist. We will name that problem number one. I decided to blog some final thoughts about Mesa Springs and my stay. I wanted it to be perfect. So, I started to think about what I wanted to blog. Enter the second problem. I over think everything. Just ask my son, Daniel. He tells me I over think things and I tell him I think he may be right, but I have to think it over and then, after thinking about it, I will get back to him to let him know what I think...I think. Anyway, I regress. I've stopped obsessing over what to blog and here are some final thoughts for you.

Mental illness is a beast. Bipolar disorder is a beast. An ugly, rotten, stinking beast that does it's best to chew us up and spit us out. And, there are times it succeeds. Any chronic, possibly terminal illness is a beast. Is mental illness the worst beast to live with? I won't go that far although on bad days I would lead the parade. My nephew, Ricky, is fighting a reoccurrence of cancer and I can't imagine going through what he is going through. They had to drill a hole in his hip! But, mental illness is truly a beast. In my opinion, it is the only illness that tries to cyclically destroy our cognitive, emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical being. It is not a nice beast to live with. As you know, there are many people that live successfully with mental illness though. Right? Well, let me address that for just a moment. I have bipolar disorder. And, even though you read probably the worst I have ever been through (ok, it was definitely the worst) because of a depressive state, I am a success. In fact, I am a huge success. You see, I still breathe. Therefore, I am a success. Are you reading this? You are a success, also. Congratulations. You are enough. Just as you are. Right now. This very moment; you are a warrior, just like me. I don't care what your current state is. You are breathing. You are a success for living with this beast.

Did I have mitigating factors that exacerbated my depressive state? Yes. But that is the nature of the beast. And I would like to address that, also. You will hear the terms 'mental health' and mental illness' thrown around as if they mean the same thing. They don't and whenever possible, I refuse to use the term 'mental health'. Unfortunately, that is where the current mental 'health' system focuses. They ignore those that are seriously ill, and ignore those that aren't so seriously ill, too. They focus on mental health, not mental illness. Unfortunately, the more ill we are, the less attention we receive. It just has to change or all of us are in danger. I fear for my children should they inherit my disorder with the current state of affairs. Anyway, to make my point about the difference between mental health and mental illness. Every human has their own mental health to take care of. None of us have had a perfect life free of strife, mistakes, disappointment, dysfunctional relationships, loss, etc. So, each of us has been molded by the positive and the negative in our lives into what we currently are. That is mental health. People deal with mental health issues every single day from those experiences. That is NOT, however, mental illness. Do you know the story of the princess and the pea? The pea is our mental health. All of those mattresses are mental illness on top of every single positive and negative experience in life. It piles high on your psyche and smothers your mental health. You can't find your mental health. It is not health (or the pea), it is illness (all of those mattresses piled one of top of another hiding that pea), and there is no princess in this story. Mental illness is a disease of the brain. You will see me repeat this over and over. The very organ perfectly designed to help us rationalize, accept, make decisions about, and lead us through an illness is the very organ that is diseased. It conflicts itself. It works against itself. It fools itself. It can't be trusted all the time. Like I said, it is a beast. We know next to nothing about the brain and therefore know very little about mental illness and how to treat it, (never mind cure it!).

So what did I learn from Mesa Springs? Well, first, I have to tell you that it was very difficult for me to transcribe the first week. I cried many tears while doing so. How in the world did I let myself get that low? But, I felt energized by the last 6 days. I saw the broken become much less than broken, and I am even more less broken now by making myself relive it. So, transcribing those last days was, in sorts, a mini boost. I learned that anyone can go from the depths of despair to beginning to accept mental illness. Yes, I have accepted that I have bipolar before. It was time for me to accept it again. I learned that anyone can go from the depths of self hatred to beginning to love oneself. Have I loved myself before? Yes, but it was time to do that again. I learned that if I want to be the kind of person I want to be, I first have to willingly accept the person I am, illness and all. That was a kick in the butt to my perfectionism. It didn't take kindly to it. I learned that I am enough. I have bipolar. I am not ashamed of it. I need help at times. And I am a fighter, so I am going to ask for help when I need it instead of beating my head against a brick wall. If I can do any of this, you can do it too. I watched, as a third person (even though I was transcribing my own words), someone come back to life and succeed.

I have been enrolled in an aftercare intensive group therapy program at Mesa Springs since my release from inpatient and it has been very hard work. I am finished now, but most days I came home mentally exhausted and had to take a nap. So please understand this very important fact. Inpatient stays are for one reason only. To stabilize you to begin working your way back to a balanced state. I read an interesting article the other day that spoke to getting your bipolar disorder IN order. I like that thought. Bipolar is never free of the possibilities of a manic, hypomanic or depressive state. A lot of very regimented, hard work has to go into lengthening the timeframes between episodes. Tons. So, inpatient stays do nothing more than get you ready to jump back up on that horse and try to ride. You just never finally reach the proverbial sunset. You are going to fall back off at one point or another. It doesn't mean when you fall off that you need hospitalization. I did, but I not only fell off the horse, I demanded it stomp all over me and kick dust in my face. You probably don't need hospitalization like I did if you are working hard and sticking to your regimen. You may just need a med tweak. But then again, that is the beast. Bipolar hates meds. Bipolar hates regimen. It fools itself that it doesn't need that. How many cancer patients find out that their tumor is shrinking and decide to stop just because they think their cancer will heal itself without any further treatment? I'm willing to say that if that number exists, it is very low. Ask that about mental illness and your number is too large to count. Even the group therapy that I just finished isn't the 'end'. I now face intensive personal therapy, finding some public support groups out there, deeper dependence on my personal support group for an unseen amount of time, and a regimented sleep, diet, exercise, and medicine schedule (again). All of that and more, like journaling and blogging are what I need to manage my mental illness.

I entered Mesa Springs in a bad state. Today, I am in a much better state. I entered broken and am now much less than broken. I still have a long way to go. I understand depressive and hypomanic states are a part of my future. But, Mesa Springs gave me a selfish idea. It made me realize I want to change this blog. I still want to blog about stigma and needed law changes. However, I am going to focus more on topics that we can address together to take care of ourselves. I know of a blogger with mental illness that blogged how uncomfortable they were with blogging about their struggles. You won't find this here. If I don't stay authentic with you, how can I be authentic with myself? So, I hope you will like the future blogs I have in the works and find them helpful. I will be including how I struggle, too. We'll share tips for managing. We'll delve into topics about why we think the way we do as mentally ill persons and how we can improve. We'll go into topics that are exercises for self care. We'll share with our supporters how to help us help ourselves. And, we will still talk about stigma and needed changes. Even though my main goal is still to touch you, I will be touching and supporting myself at the same time.

I would like to leave you with two songs. The first, "Sober", by Tool, is me going into Mesa Springs. It has one word I want you to change. When you hear the word, 'sober', replace it with 'normal'.  The second song is "Fight Song" by Rachel Platten. That is me today. Stick with me, let's fight together.

To balanced and productive days my friends,

Laura

SOBER, by TOOL

FIGHT SONG, by RACHEL PLATTEN